


the neil josten to everyone dictionary

by unrain



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 08:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17722049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrain/pseuds/unrain
Summary: If you use a word three times, it becomes yours.





	the neil josten to everyone dictionary

### Death (see also: `Father, Moriyama, Mother`)

noun /deθ/

  1. the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism. Compare: `BRAIN DEAD`, `SPIRITUAL DEATH`
  2. the state of being dead.
  3. the permanent ending of vital processes in a cell or tissue.
  4. The gun says, “Bang!” And then his mother says no more.



The gun says, “Bang!” again, and Neil is pretty sure he dies, but he miraculously opens his eyes to face the same world, see the same sky, just in sharper focus. Reborn, he’s left with the last word, except he doesn’t have anything he should've said so it doesn’t do him any good anyway. Instead, he silently drags his mother’s body to what remains of their rundown car and drives it down to the beach to burn the whole thing down. He grits his teeth and pours the gasoline over her, thinking that even in death, she looks beautiful.

And then she goes up into smoke, leaving no parts of herself behind, not even any bones to bury, and it’s so unfair because Neil is pretty sure she took a part of his heart with her.

The scale evens out though, when Neil understands he’s able to continue play exy without her around. His mother would probably disagree. When he reaches out for Wymack’s hand, he imagines his mother slapping him, kicking him down, and telling him that he’s terrible at math. Well, tough luck.

“Tough love,” Uncle Stuart says when Neil tells him this over Skype through a computer in one of the campus’ libraries. Even with the bad pixilation, Neil can see his face doing something complicated. “If your mother was still here, she would say that was her way of showing her love to you. But if you ask me, there’s a very, very fine line between tough love and abuse, and Miriam was that line.”

Neil hangs up before Uncle Stuart can tell him anything about the search for his father. Neil doesn’t want to get his hopes up, because, well, his father will never die and Uncle Stuart refuses to understand. There’s no coffin big enough in the whole wide world for his father because his father was a legend long before Neil was even born, and legends are never men. Legends are myths and cautionary tales and epics, and they never grow up or grow old. The only way for a legend to die is to die hard. And as long as Neil is named Neil, a Nathan will always live on inside him. Nathaniel.

“Don’t worry, Neil,” Uncle Stuart says when Neil is too slow to shut off the connection another time. “I build coffins as a business. I can make one for him too.”

But Neil worries because he was taught to worry. Death has always been around Neil for as long as he can remember. Behind the steering wheel, behind a gun, behind a knife, in the hospital bed, in a casket, in a friend. But it doesn’t occur to Neil that it’s not something for him to fear before Ichirou Moriyama puts a gun to his brother’s temple and pulls the trigger with a smile. That very same day, Uncle Stuart tells him his father is dead.

With Riko’s blood fresh and warm on his shirt, Neil’s perception of death tilts.

Death is death is death is a new beginning.

 

### Dream (see also: `Exy`)

noun /ˈdrēm/

  1. a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep. Compare: `DAYDREAM`, `NIGHTMARE`
  2. something notable for its beauty, excellence, or enjoyable quality.
  3. a strongly desired goal or purpose; something that fully satisfies a `WISH`.
  4. a game played on a court between two teams of six players each, the object being to score goals by shooting a ball into the opponent’s cage using a racquet, each type of racquet consisting of varying depths of netting depending on the player’s position.
  5. “You’re a pipe dream,” Andrew once told Neil.



What do you know about pipe dreams, Andrew, Neil didn’t ask later, when he understood Andrew’s meaning. Pipe dreams is running from place to place to place to place, not knowing when you can stop running and call your current destination safe. Pipe dreams is thinking you can keep this identity yours and all the human connections that follows. Pipe dreams is being so restless you can’t sleep all night, your fingers twitching for something—a stick, a racquet—to grab.

Maybe, on some level, Neil knew already then that he was a sure thing for Andrew. You can’t call a sure thing for a pipe dream.

Exy wasn’t a sure thing. Life wasn’t a sure thing. A future wasn’t a sure thing.

But there’s no reason to squabble over it now because they both got what they wanted, or very close to it.

Sometimes, when Andrew is exceptionally restless and his hands tremors get worse, Neil drags him out to one of their gyms at the dead of night to play exy, because as much as Andrew tries to deny it, holding an exy racquet is one of the few ways to get his mind to rest.

Playing without helmet or pads is outright taunting fate, because this sport invites for—no, it breeds—opportunities for shattered skulls and cracked fingers and broken feet. Wymack would have a seizure, seeing them play like this. But with Andrew, it’s completely okay because he makes the blood in his veins sing. Just by being with him, Neil is reminded that they’re young and the rules of injury and physics doesn’t apply to them. If they wanted to, they could soar to the moon and beyond. To the edge of the universe.

When they’re like this, Neil thinks he doesn’t need a league or a captaincy or sponsor and fans and a whole audience, if he could just have Andrew enjoy himself playing with Neil. When they’re like this, Neil is afraid to blink, to open his eyes to see a ceiling and find out this was just a dream.

What do you call a dream when you’re living it?

 

### Family (see also: `Boyd`, `Day`, `Fox`, `Hemmick`, `Minyard`, `Reynolds`, `Walker`, `Wilds`, `Wymack`)

noun /ˈfæməli/

  1. a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered a group whether dwelling together or not.
  2. all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.
  3. a group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals and, frequently, live together.
  4. The first time Neil calls Wymack dad, there’s fortunately only him, Wymack and another one of the Foxes in the living room of Wymack’s house to witness it. Unfortunately, that third person is Kevin.



To Wymack’s credit, he doesn’t even stutter. He continues with the commentary, pointing at the TV screen showing a rerun of their latest game as if they’re still in uni and he’s still their coach. Neither Neil or Kevin are in uni anymore, but Wymack will probably always be their coach.

“Yeah, yeah,” Neil says, eyes also intent on the screen. He holds himself carefully still and refuses to wince as he sees himself getting tackled and thrown on the ground, zoomed in and slowed down, shown in full HD in all of its glory. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“You’re still blatantly favoring your right side, Neil,” Wymack says, handing over the bowl with nuts. “Of course they’re going to take advantage of that when you’re so overt. Fix that during your next practice.”

Neil rolls his eyes at Wymack’s demand; of course Neil could undo a bad habit he’s had for years during one two hour practice. “Thanks for the high vote of confidence, dad.”

The blood in Neil’s veins freezes.

“And Kevin,” Wymack continues as if nothing happened, as if Neil’s whole world didn’t just swirl out of its axis, as if— “Don’t snicker. That goal was pretty, but I can see you taking eighty percent of your shots with your left, and if I can see it, you bet your opponents will damn right see it. What was the point of training your right, huh? Keep up, son.”

Neil thanks every God and deity ever worshipped that his skin is too dark to show any blush because his head feels like it’ll explode. He turns his head slightly to glance at Wymack beside him on the couch, but Wymack’s leaned over, elbows resting on his knees and gesturing at the screen with the remote. Neil can’t catch his expression.

What he does catch is Kevin, leaned back on the couch on Wymack’s other side, a wide grin on his face and his shoulders shaking in mute laughter.

 _I will kill you_ , Neil mouths at him.

“Well,” Wymack says a few minutes later, rising to stretch with a groan. He walks into the kitchen, saying, “Better check on that dinner. Put on the next tape, won’t you, Neil?”

Neil does so while pointedly not looking in Kevin’s direction, but the second he sits on the couch again, he feels hands cradling either side of his face and forcibly turn his head to the side to look at a gleeful Kevin.

“Oh, man,” Kevin cackles. “I knew it! Your face is burning.”

Grabbing Kevin’s arms, Neil pushes him back, hissing, “Shut up, idiot, not so loud!”

Kevin laughs, but when Neil continues to look down at his feet, he stops. He nudges Neil and says, more quietly, “Hey, is this really bothering you that much?”

“Isn’t it bothering you?” Neil asks instead, tilting his head to look sideways at Kevin. “He’s your dad.”

“My dad,” Kevin says and he says the words like they’re—not new exactly, but important. Precious. “My dad is a good man, and I know he is a great dad, because—you know you’re not the first to call him dad, right? Nicky and Allison call him pops. I mean, it was a joke at first, but everyone knows it’s not anymore. Even Andrew calls him old man. Dan… Dan calls him dad too.”

“You mean,” Neil says, his eyes widening involuntarily. “You had this conversation with Dan?”

Kevin lies down on the couch to kick him in the side. “Don’t remind me. That was too emotional.”

“Was there crying involved?”

“I mean,” Kevin mutters, rolling his eyes and acting all faux casual. “Maybe.”

Some of the tension in Neil’s shoulder seep out and he laughs. Neil would bet all his savings that Kevin was the one crying. Kevin smiles.

“So don’t act like it’s horrifying, or something,” Kevin says. “It’s—what would Abby say in this situation?—natural. My dad has eight kids.”

“Shut up,” Neil says. “I’m more horrified by the fact that this makes Nicky and you my brothers.”

And it’s meant as a chirp, as a joke, but Kevin looks at him with a scrunched up grimace as if he’s trying hard to suppress a smile. Because Kevin knows as well as Neil that Neil was the first one Kevin went to when he wanted to get the tribal tattoo on his back to honor his dad. That Neil is still the only one who knows that Kevin is considering changing his legal name back to Kenichi, to honor his mother’s heritage and carry her first gift to him for everyone to see.

And Neil is the one who noticed Nicky become more and more distant, to the point that Neil decided to invite him over for dinner and dragged the whole story out of him, that he and Erik were on shaky grounds. Neil is the one who kicked him in gear and bought him a ticket to Germany.

Dan is one of his greatest rivals on the court, but she is also the one who Neil is most grateful to, for helping him become a great leader, like her. Some day Neil might make captain again like she did, but he knows he’ll never live up to Dan.

Renee isn’t as scary as she used to be to him, and she was the one who taught him how to ride a motorcycle. Mostly, she tells him about her travels, about Stephanie, and about the other Foxes. They can hold a two-sided conversation beyond twenty seconds now.

Neil couldn’t care less about Seth, but he still goes with Allison to visit his grave.

And Matt. Matt is so intrinsically connected to Neil, Neil is sure that if other universes exist, Neil and Matt are brothers in every single one of them every single one of them.

There are still some times Neil can’t even look Aaron in the face for fear of not being able to push down the urge to punch him up if he does, but they still invite each other for dinner at their own places. Sometimes, Neil even goes.

And Andrew doesn’t talk about family at all. He never brings up mothers, or fathers, and would probably be content with not bringing up Aaron at all, but they still have contact. Neil knows because sometimes he comes home to hear soft-spoken Korean and he knows it’s Andrew talking to Aaron on the phone. When Andrew’s black hair roots start showing, he asks Neil for help to bleach it, and Neil makes sure he’s as careful as he can be when he touches Andrew.

“Hey,” Kevin says, breaking Neil away from his introspection and making him realize he must’ve been looking at the empty air for minutes. “You know he’s waiting for you in the kitchen, right?”

“Yeah,” Neil says and rises. “Yeah, shut up already, it’s weird when you’re the emotionally mature one in the conversation, Jesus. I’m going.”

“But hey, I just realized,” Kevin yells after him. “If this makes everyone siblings, does that mean Andrew is your—”

“La la la la la,” Neil yells back, holding his hands up to his ears. “Can’t hear you, dumbass.”

In the kitchen, Wymack stops up with what he’s doing to frown at him. Neil lets his hands fall away and shakes his head, saying, “You don’t want to know.”

Wymack rolls his eyes, and turns around again, picking up a kitchen knife to continue cutting up tomatoes. The knife glints, even under the warm kitchen lights.

Neil takes a breath that’s a lot shuddery than he would’ve liked. Counts to ten. “You need any help?”

Wymack doesn’t answer, just points to another cutting board. Neil moves to stand next to him on the kitchen table, and they don’t say anything as they work to make a salad. There’s no need. They both know the significance of Neil standing so close to a man like Wymack while he wields a sharp knife.

Neil trusts him, probably more than he should.

“I know you trust me,” Wymack says quietly, breaking the tentative silence between them and lowering his head. “Probably more than you should.”

And this is the reason why Neil trusts Wymack even half as much as he does. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Neil says, smiling. _One down, two more times to go_.

 

### Fine (see also: `Language`)

adverb /faɪn/

  1. (informal) in an excellent manner; very well: `He did fine on the exams.`
  2. very small.
  3. “Shut up,” Dan says, pointing a fork in Neil’s direction. “You know like, six languages. Say something other than fine, God.”



Neil stabs his macaroni dish with a sigh. “Not you too. What else am I supposed to say? I’m really fine.”

“Not you too, he says,” Dan mutters. “As if he doesn’t lie half the time saying that phrase. Did you—Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

“Yeah,” Neil says, “want me to show you again?”

Dan raises her brows. “Okay,” she says slowly, dragging each vowel. “Okay, I’ll let it go. No need for the sarcasm, jeez.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes, before Dan clears her throat.

“Neil, I’m sorry,” Dan says. “I—”

“No,” Neil says, “it’s okay. I know you ask me how I’m doing because you really want to know and not to make small talk, but today, I’m really fine. Just, I wish you guys would trust me more.”

“I know, Neil,” Dan says. “It’s just. You’ve been quiet on the phone for the past few weeks.”

Neil drops his cutlery and leans back on his chair. “I’m still worried about Andrew, I guess.”

Dan hums. “Understandably. He took quite the hit, but he doesn’t show any signs of concussion, right? I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Neil says into his dish. “Yeah. Andrew will be fine. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.”

A hand appears beside Neil’s dish, and he looks up at Dan who’s leaning over the table with a worried furrow between her brows. The hand isn’t demanding, just supportive. Just a I’m here.

“I’m only fluent in three languages, you know,” Neil blurts out. Dan removes her hand slowly, but she’s watching Neil, showing that he still has her attention. “Because me and my mom—we travelled a lot. And sometimes, when she needed me to be quiet or, or if I did something she didn’t like, she’d make me read dictionaries. To learn more vocabulary, you know? But she also knew that just reading them wouldn’t be enough. So she used to say that if I could use a word three times, the word would be mine.”

Realization dawns on Dan’s face. She smiles, and Neil understands why Matt tells him she’s the most beautiful woman on earth. “Neil,” she says, and it’s not a reassurance but a simple fact of life coming from her mouth, that’s how much conviction she has in her voice, “Andrew will be fine.”

 

### Love (see also: `Andrew Minyard`)

noun /lʌv/

  1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
  2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
  3. sexual passion or desire.
  4. "One hundred percent.”
  5. “You bring me peace, Neil.”
  6. “No one can make you do anything,” Andrew says, and it’s one of those motivational speeches for Kevin, but Kevin is bent over himself, head in his hands, so when Andrew, standing in front of Kevin, looks straight ahead, he’s effectively looking over Kevin’s head and right at Neil. It feels deliberate.



“No one can make you do anything,” Andrew repeats after a beat. “Not me, not Wymack, not Thea, not Neil, not even Riko. The only one who can make you do anything, is you.”

Andrew makes Neil want to do the wildest things, like kiss a boy and bite into his ice cream and confront the Moriyamas and believe in a better future. A future at all.

And the thing is, Neil can see himself live without Andrew. If they, for some reason, grow apart and away in the future, Neil would survive that because he doesn’t intend to build his life around Andrew. The only thing he asks of Andrew, is for him to be included into the building of his life. So he would survive Andrew not being in his life, but Neil’s not sure how he could be living when he got a taste of the best life he could have and lost it.

No one can make Neil do anything at all, but Neil can make himself do stuff and Andrew makes Neil want to do the craziest things. Andrew doesn’t make Neil a better person so much as he makes Neil want to become a better person.

In the car ride back from Kevin’s place, Neil makes his move. They always seem to have their most important conversations inside cars or on roofs.

“Andrew,” Neil says. “Andrew, Andrew.”

“Neil,” Andrew says, shifting gears as they move onto the highway. “Neil, Neil.”

“No,” Neil says, shaking his head in frustration. “I mean, Andrew Minyard. Andrew Minyard. Andrew Minyard.”

There’s a confused beat of silence, and then Andrew makes a sudden turn that propels them across four lanes, before making them come to a sudden stop at the edge of the highway. Neil has to take a moment to unclench his fingers, one by one, from the death grip he has around his seatbelt. When he’s done, he turns to look at Andrew.

Andrew’s already looking back.

“You make me,” Neil blurts out, and stops.

Andrew’s brows raise even higher. “Every time I think you’ve said the most stupid thing and you can’t possibly go further down, you always outdo yourself and surprise me,” he says. “You undo me with your stupidity.”

“Hey,” Neil says.

Sighing, Andrew reaches over with a hand. It’s shaking, but the tremors stop when Neil holds it, twines their fingers together and that simple fact never stops ruining Neil. It’s overwhelming, this explosion of warmth and affection he feels just seeing their hands together, so he closes his eyes in an effort to quiet down the sensory overload.

“Neil,” Andrew says slowly, like he wants to make sure it gets through, “you undo me.”

Neil doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath before he’s letting it out in a rush of air. “I don’t make you?” he says with a smile, trying to ignore the tremors in his voice.

There's a click and then a soft press to Neil's lips as Andrew takes off his seatbelt and leans in to kiss Neil. “You’ve already made me yours, Neil,” he whispers against Neil’s cheek, and Neil knows. Neil knows he’ll survive without Andrew, but he’ll never live it down.

**Author's Note:**

> originally published 2018-09-30


End file.
